Veterans Day, Government Policy and Israel

On this Veterans Day, we should all take a moment to contemplate the sacrifice our soldiers accept to protect us from people and countries that would do us harm.  We should contemplate what the proper role and range of American Defense Policy should be.  We should contemplate how we pay for that Defense Department and remember the costs are not simply the current costs, but also the cost of helping those warriors who come home damaged in some manner.  Defense costs are current expenses and should be paid for out of current revenue, not borrowed money as the Bush II administration decided we should.  In conservative economic policy, funds are borrowed to pay for investment which will produce the revenues to repay the debt.

In a similar theme, Thomas Friedman today urges the Israeli government to contemplate the changing electorate in the U.S. and think about the implications for an Israel that does not encourage a separate Palestinian State.  My point about Israel has never been a question of its right to self-defense.  They will need a strong proverbial sword for a long time into the future.

Link to Freidman

However, Israel, like the U.S., excludes a significant percentage of its population from the reality of defending the State.  In the U.S., we have an all volunteer military that few children of wealth volunteer for.  In Israel, the conservative, most hard-lined religious sects who want all of Jerusalem and the West Bank for Israeli settlement are not required to serve in the military and thus bear none of the burden of the defense their beliefs require.  The hard-lined sects prevent the compromises on land that are needed to provide Palestinian leaders with the legitimacy they need to govern.

Israel governs land that has an ever increasing population of Palestinians.  There will be no drop in Palestinian birth rates until there is economic growth.  There will be no economic growth in Palestine until there is peace.  Without a drop in Palestinian birth rates, Israel will not be sufficiently Jewish to be a Jewish State.  Israel needs a 2 State solution. Israel must foster a way to establish a Palestinian State or it faces an ever increasing risk of committing genocide against Palestinians.  That is not only too horrifically ironic to contemplate, but also something that the world will never accept.

I know some of my friends will say what about Iran and similar promises to wipe Israel off the map.  Well, such thoughts would be much more difficult if there were a Palestinian State and Israel already has the full support of the U.S. and most E.U. countries to defend themselves against that.

The political world is changing and the newly enfranchised citizens of the Arab World are not accepting of the current status of Palestine.  There is nothing in that progression of change that Israel can stop, and Israel's path to influence of that change will come about only if there is a Palestinian State.

Israel, like the Republican Party, must recognize that the population of today is not the population of even 30 years ago.  The world changes and policies must change too, while maintaining a strong well funded military for defense purposes.